Targeting billionaires with a 24-hour pause? Like throwing pebbles at a fortress.
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this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2025
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It's a tiered strategy and works with the idea that a lot of people haven't ever tried boycotts. Once they see they're part of something the movement grows stronger. Empower people don't comply in advance.
Wanna know the easiest way to know if something will be effective? Look through all the astro-turfed corporate sponsored media and bot posts telling us it won't be effective and that we shouldn't do anything.
They want us to fall to inaction. They want us to look weak. This is the first step in a long road of trying to pull Americans out of their consumerist dystopia.
It'll be good practice for the main event.
Its better than doing nothing.
This is us showing them we can organize.
We still need to build numbers, organize communities, setup support systems.
Later will come the permanent boycott.
From what I understand, this is a tiered boycott. Yes it starts today with a one day boycott, but there are more and longer and targeted boycotts planned. The other day I saw a flier but forgot to save it or I'd share. Hoping it pops back up again.
I think that's important because for a general strike and boycott to work, you need to train the people, and this is how you train the people. Most everyone can stop shopping for a day, next week they can stop shopping for two days, then not at amazon for a week, then not at Walmart for a week. Then not at any big store for a week, then a month, etc
It dosent end with a one day boycott, it begins with a one day boycott!
Today is also a great day to learn about the small mom and pop operations in your town or city, and divert a few dollars of your spending to them. Today's a great day to take leave from your work, take a bus or bike into work, carpool with someone else, or otherwise not use gas. It's a great day to go out into nature or hang out with friends, not to consume, but to just live. You can't zero out your upkeep today, but maybe you can reduce it by spending smartly. To me that's what today's blackout is meant to do: not hurt Amazon and Walmart and Tesla, but learn the smart ways of doing things. IMO, at least.
This is part of what the defeatists are missing. Real movements take time.
This is a start, but there needs to be more and for longer. This first one is just to get our feet wet and get people into resisting. The second blackout should last a week. Amazon Blackout 2 should be 1-3 months, with Amazon Blackout 3 being of indefinite length. Same for Walmart.
Looking at that flyer, I only need to keep my eye out for the total blackouts, which is nice.
Any idea what's up with General Mills?
This is about a very reasonable boycott of Kellogg products, SYAC.
Let the Meat Cereal!
Lmao yes
The Peoples Union USA is sponsored by Kellogg's.
At a guess because they are visible, and in a sector (industrial food) that is doing significant harm. ADM is also huge, but harder to pinpoint, as they sell such a wide range of food products. I'm trying to find a list and my searches are not up to it.
I had to buy plane tickets this morning, and it could not wait until tomorrow. I felt horrible.
Nope. Vast majority either aren't aware or don't care, and the ones choosing to participate just timeshift their purchases by 1 day. Thursday or Saturday.
You being negative instead of constructive shows how defeated you are. Rise up with us and do your part when/where you can. No one is going to give people who have to get medication or buy formula today a hard time. It's not about the small impact this might make today it's about people coming together to make change long term. Hope this helps!
It's not a matter of positive or negative, it's a matter of reality. Single day boycotts don't work. Proven over and over again.
The boycotts that DO work are consistent and persistent. See the Bud Light boycott.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/29/business/bud-light-boycott-ab-inbev-sales/index.html
I am aware of how larger boycotts make bigger differences. Those larger boycotts started in smaller groups and spread because people got on board. How are you helping when you tell people it won't work?
Because boycotting a single day does nothing, as stated. What made the Bud Light strike work was it wasn't limited in that way. "Don't buy Bud Light. Full stop."
You want to hurt McDonald's, Amazon, Walmart, Nestlé, what have you? It has to be continual and consistent.
For me I am already permanently boycotting all of these you mentioned. For others it is not that easy and takes TIME and EFFORT. Support or don't but why be against good change even if it's little bits at a time? Do you not want to see people try or join? This is the beginning point not the end.
Another comment here is saying this is an introduction to stronger boycotts. Small achievable goals first.
This is the way.
no
To the people hoping a huge dip in their numbers on this one day will scare them: These megacorporations have set themselves up for consumers to be dependent on them. Even if we have a great turnout for this one-day boycott, it's still a boycott that asks negligible sacrifice from consumers. The corporations won't be worried that a big one-day boycott means consumers are poised to actually do real damage to them.
They'll just go buy what they want tomorrow. By the time the company is reporting quarterly earnings it'll have averaged back into place. Doesn't scare investors at all. Literally zero pressure applied.
And like, do you think anyone of consequence is looking at intra-day sales? By the time anyone actually gets hard data, it will be over.
Honestly I can't think of a better analogy than my toddler having a tantrum in his room holding his breath when I'm not even in the room. He'll have made up for it with some deep breaths after and I won't even know it happened until it's over.
The goal is not to create financial hardship for the company right off the bat. I see it as a means to organize, coordinate, and fire a warning shot.
I look forward to whatever material action is precipitated from this symbolic gesture.
So what do you recommend?
This is what people don't seem to understand.
These boycotts are already priced in. The most you're doing is mildly annoying some financial bean counter in middle management who might have to make a slight adjustment to a month-over-month sales report, and that's only if the boycott happens at the end of the month. Corporations have seen these countless times before, and they also know that at the end of the day, people still need to go out and buy things like food, clothes, gas, medications, etc. And they also know that there is absolutely no appetite for a large-scale extended boycott that would be large enough and last long enough to make a difference; most people couldn't boycott for that long even if they sincerely wanted to (and most don't. They just want to say they did.).
Like you said (and I also said once in a previous post....great minds think alike), it's like a toddler threatening to hold his breath. Yeah, that's nice kid. You've gotta breathe eventually.
What point you are missing is that these corporations are still scared we will organize. Look at how tiktok affected people's views on Gaza. You saw how fast they took control of an app as opposed to the countless problems they could actually be fixing. Getting people used to a different way of life takes time and small acts/habits.
yeah usually the point of a boycott is to put financial pressure on a corporation or institution until specific demands are met
No indeed